I spent four years as Forbes' Girl Friday, which to me meant doing a little bit of everything at once. As a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, I looked at booming business and startup life with a female gaze. I worked on the PowerWomen Wealth and Celebrity 100 lists, keeping my ears pricked and pen poised for current event stories--from political sex scandals to celebrity gossip to international affairs. In 2012 I helped to put two South American women on the cover of FORBES Magazine: Modern Family star Sofia Vergara (the top-earning actress on U.S. television) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is transforming the BRIC nation into an entrepreneurial powerhouse. Prior to Forbes I was at the Philadelphia CityPaper, where I learned more than any girl ever needs to know about the city's seedier trades. I studied digital journalism at The University of The Arts.
I left Forbes in November, 2013, to pursue other interests on the West Coast.

Every Man You Work With Thinks You Want To Sleep With Him

A new study suggests that—no matter how platonic you imagine a relationship may be—every man you know but aren’t related to is trying to sleep with you. And what’s worse, they think you’re trying to sleep with them right back.

Yes, really.

According to the research, reported on by Scientific American, which looked at 80 man-woman platonic relationships in “emergent adulthood” (read: twenty-somethings), men were more attracted to women than vice versa. Men also consistently and mistakenly assumed that their women friends were harboring a secret sexual crush of their own. The best part? The men surveyed didn’t care if the woman was involved in a relationship; their feelings and assumptions didn’t change.

And while this unique insight into the male brain is troubling for male-female friendships around the world—including your insistence that you “stay friends” with all of your exes—the findings are much more disturbing when put into the context of the workplace. What about the platonic relationships you have with your male colleagues? Do male supervisors believe their female subordinates are in love with them? How does that shape corporate culture, the assessment of female employees and women’s advancement in the office?

My gut tells me this: “Not well.”

Here’s the abstract from the referenced study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships by researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire:

We propose that, because cross-sex friendships are a historically recent phenomenon, men’s and women’s evolved mating strategies impinge on their friendship experiences. In our first study involving pairs of friends, emerging adult males reported more attraction to their friend than emerging adult females did, regardless of their own or their friend’s current relationship status.

Now. If we accept this as true, that guys in their late 20s (and, increasingly, early 30s) are incapable of respecting platonic relationships, the scenario could play out something like this. You’ve worked your tail off all year, meeting quotas and volunteering for projects to prove your commitment to the team. You’ve worked late nights and even weekends to show your supervisor he can count on you. But your boss hasn’t gotten the message; instead, he’s filed those nights and weekends under “romantic pursuit” and your hard-work as pleas for his attention.

Stay with me. Because your boss believes you’ve been working for the last 12 months not to, say, score a plum promotion, but to get into his pants, he’s not going to be thinking about your career, and how big of a role his review plays in your long-term advancement. Not at all. Instead, he’s downplaying your accomplishments and deciding whether or not he should sleep with you. (Because remember, he already believes you’re into it).

And that, dear readers, could be the very reason you didn’t get your last raise.

What do you think? Am I reaching in thinking this study has any impact on workplace relationships? Has this happened to you? Tell me about it.

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And yet…”be scared of your boss because he wants to sleep with you” is exactly how you presented this unrelated study.

In fact, you took an unrelated study out of context and said that “not only does you boss want to sleep with you, but every single one of your coworkers. Here’s the ‘evidence’ that backs that up. So beware, readers. You may not get promotions and career advances because all the men want to sleep with you!”

Actually, you *can* download a free copy in PDF format — look in the right-hand column of the web page containing the abstract. Unless you’re familiar with reading journals online, you probably didn’t even look for that.

Of all the female conceits published daily in ForbesWoman, this one really takes the cake. All ForbesWomen need to function are the words “New Study” and they are off on flights of gender-prose eloquence.

Scientific American has plummeted from a respected popular science journal to a laffable women’s study rag on par with “Psychology Today”.

As for all the guys at work wanting to rogure you, they would do a hole in the mud if given the chance so don’t get a swollen head over it. And frankly, every place I have worked that featured female co-workers I had to dodge their continual overtures to get me in the sack .

It is women, not men, who instigate most episodes of workplace sex play. And any man stupid enough to engage in a “friendship” with a female co-worker is a hopeless beta hoping he will eventually snag some action when he professes his true love for her, which has an extreme dessicating effect on the woman, who was only using his attention to inflate her vapid ego.

I went through the same thing working in a grocery store. Everyday some woman would come in an automatically assume I would fall on my face. Honestly, I kept it professional all the time, but how can you just walk into a place like a supermarket and infuriate sexual thoughts of someone? I don’t see how men think these things, but only that women do at constantly. Your right it is creepy and women spend to much time in front of the mirror, that’s the thing.

Ok, this is only mostly true. Speaking as a young professional man in my early thirties, who does actually take time to maintain my looks/body, I can definitely say that most young women in their twenties who have worked in our office either wanted to sleep with me, or did in fact sleep with me at some point in the past five years.

Just being honest about how guys think about the attractive women in their office and how Ive acted in the past. No thats not bragging rights, I only slept with one girl at the last place I worked, and I’ve only slept with five girls from work in the past five years Ive been at this office. Four of those five were college interns, who were between eight to ten years younger than me, and yes, the other one was my secretary, about five years younger than me. I was a total gentleman about it, never pressuring anyone, always flattering, always respectful.

Right out the gate, I started in my late twenties and had been highly recruited to fill a spot left by a bright, capable young professional woman who left to have babies. No judgment here, I had a professional working mother too and was raised by a WW2 generation nanny. I totally respect women.

None of the five girls have any hard feelings about it at all, and actually, they all handled it like a champ. No office gossip or horseplay, just nice, cool, respectful distance. No constant texts, no office drama. It was done the right way, and I think they all appreciated it alot. Four of those five have moved on to other places, three because of excellent promotions or job opportunities. They were hard working girls afterall. My secretary, a real knockout looker, was engaged to her college sweetheart at the time she and I were sleeping together while working on a big project, had been having some relationship problems. I think she appreciated having an older guy who respected her contributions to the team, and saw her as more than just eye candy. She was the best of all of them about being discrete and professional about the whole thing. I honestly wonder if maybe she wasn’t the one really in control and was just playing me to get what she wanted and satisfy her needs while she was sorting things out with her fiancee.

Either way, she was just extremely professional and discrete about the whole affair. She knew I was married, and since she was planning a wedding herself, she didnt want it to go badly for either of us. When she ended up marrying her fiancee, she even invited me to the wedding; although I could not attend because I had an out of town business trip, I sent a very nice wedding gift that was among the most expensive on her registry. When her new husband got a job assignment to California, I was extremely encouraging to her of how much she’d love it and how well she’d do. When I was contacted as one of her references, I gave her a glowing review for her outstanding performance.

Only one of those five still works at the office, one of the cute college interns about nine years younger than me who was offered a permenant position. She and I still have an excellent professional relationship. We have slept together off and on only infrequently, and she is simply outstanding about keeping her distance, and me keeping mine so that we don’t interfere with each others business. She is a real go getter, and I respect that. The last thing I would want is to interfere in her career, so I praise her when appropriate, but not in an unwarranted manner. She knows Im married and I understand that she has had a serious boyfriend who she wants to propose to her, and we both respect that. When she has had boyfriend problems in the past she has come to me and I have listened to her. I have told her what a great person she is and how capable she is, and how she deserves to be respected. And when praised like that, she was in fact all too eager to sleep with me.

But we both handle it well. We dont text about it. We dont gossip. We dont even exchange awkward glances while in the same room. We dont even flirt excessively at company functions or cocktail parties, always very cool, distant and respectful. Honestly, I can say she has been a great girl, and along with my former secretary, a virtual model for how office affairs should be done.

But do I actually want to sleep with every single woman in the office? Uh, No. Only the attractive ones, please. At least as long as Im sober, I’d prefer them to be attractive.

But I think that its probably true that alot of women in their twenties, and some in their thirties, do at least think about sleeping with attractive guys in the office. Obviously nearly all heterosexual guys, whether attractive or not, who are in their twenties, or thirties, (and possibly forties or fifties), do in fact think of sleeping with every attractive girl in the office at least at some point or another. The more attractive the woman, the more you can bet that some red-blooded guys in the office want to sleep with her.

When it comes to the more average looking woman it will have alot more to do with how they carry themselves and how they act. I’d say I’m fairly less inclined to be actively thinking about sleeping with an average looking woman in the office, if she keeps a cool professional distance, and maybe occasionally drops a reference to her husband/boyfriend. Especially if she isnt actively dressing “office sexy”. Office Sexy = High Heels and Pencil Skirts? Yes, Please. Preferably with bare legs that look good in a skirt and heels, and preferably with a nice shirt that shows off some kind of figure curves and some kind of flattering bust line.

So as far as the men I know in this and other offices are concerned, I’d say it works like this: - the attractive girls are always going to be the object of desire. - the average looking girls will probably only be the object of desire if (a) she is trying to look sexy or act forward towards the guy, or (b) if the guy has had a few drinks, or (c) if the guy is desperate. - the below average looking girls will only be the object of desire if the guy has had a few drinks AND is also desperate for any action he can find.

The thing is, even if a guy has a serious relationship, like is married or engaged or virtually engaged, he’s still going to notice the attractive girls around him. It doesnt mean hes going to act on it. It just means he thinks about it some.

Also, I can’t say with certitude how average looking or below average looking guys think about these things, because thats not me yet. Maybe if I really let myself go, stop going to the gym, start dressing like I shop at a discount big box store, etc then I would be more average looking and wouldnt feel as empowered to play the field. I think attractiveness and overall professional confidence has alot to do with how these things work.

And I do think thats a two way street. I think the attractive/sexy, but powerful women are just straight up desirable, even when unobtainable. A VP in one of the companies we do a great deal of business with is in her late forties, and is just dead sexy. Not purely because she is physically attractive, but also because she is in fact powerful and authorative. She commands respect. I have no illusion that shed be interested in sleeping with a guy like me, but I would be lying if I didnt say that I wouldn’t mind a bit if she did. So do I think about sleeping with that cougar – you bet I do. Do I have an illusion that Id ever get the chance to tame the cougar? None whatsoever. Shes way outta my leauge and I know it, and I accept it. Doesnt mean I don’t want it and doesnt mean I dont think about it. But honestly, great legs and sexy high heels asside, over half of my attraction to her is total admiration for her being A++ at her job, shes a brutal boss, but efficient and fair minded. Shes like a corporate alpha male ego with all the mental accumen of a woman at the very top of the game, and she does it packaged in a sublimely sexy cougar in her late forties.

So there you have it. The unvarnished, yes, probably a bit sexist, truths from a professional in his early thirties. Some will decry me as a rouge or scoundrel, others will know I am affirming the truth. Either way, there it is.

Not to be racist, but are you Black? I noticed that office skanks are a little more discreet when getting rogured by the Black fellows, who are smooth and suave and will plug just about anything in the office veldt.